Apache::Cookie - HTTP Cookies Class

    use Apache::Cookie ();
    my $r = Apache->request;
    my $cookie = Apache::Cookie->new($r, ...);

The Apache::Cookie module is a Perl interface to the cookie routines in libapreq. The interface is based on Lincoln Stein's CGI::Cookie module.

Apache::Cookie does not export any symbols to the caller's namespace. Except for the request object passed to CWApache::Cookie::new, the OO interface is identical to CGI::Cookie. Please consult the CGI::Cookie documentation for more details.

Just like CGI::Cookie::new, but requires an Apache request object:

        my $cookie = Apache::Cookie->new($r,
                             -name    =>  'foo', 
                             -value   =>  'bar', 
                             -expires =>  '+3M', 
                             -domain  =>  '.capricorn.com', 
                             -path    =>  '/cgi-bin/database',
                             -secure  =>  1 
                            );

Put cookie in the oven to bake. (Add a Set-Cookie header to the outgoing headers table.)

    $cookie->bake;

This method parses the given string if present, otherwise, the incoming Cookie header:

    my $cookies = $cookie->parse; #hash ref

    my %cookies = $cookie->parse;

    my %cookies = $cookie->parse($cookie_string);

Fetch and parse the incoming Cookie header:

    my $cookies = Apache::Cookie->fetch; #hash ref

    my %cookies = Apache::Cookie->fetch;

Format the cookie object as a string:

 #same as $cookie->bake
 $r->err_headers_out->add("Set-Cookie" => $cookie->as_string);

Get or set the name of the cookie:

 my $name = $cookie->name;

 $cookie->name("Foo");

Get or set the values of the cookie:

 my $value = $cookie->value;
 my @values = $cookie->value;

 $cookie->value("string");
 $cookie->value(\@array);

Get or set the domain for the cookie:

 my $domain = $cookie->domain;
 $cookie->domain(".cp.net");

Get or set the path for the cookie:

 my $path = $cookie->path;
 $cookie->path("/");

Get or set the expire time for the cookie:

 my $expires = $cookie->expires;
 $cookie->expires("+3h");

Get or set the secure flag for the cookie:

 my $secure = $cookie->secure;
 $cookie->secure(1);

The underlying C code for the Apache::Cookie module presents some unexpected results for Perl programmers when dealing with null bytes ('\0's) inside cookies. Native C commonly uses null-terminated strings when storing scalar string values. This means that C uses a '\0' byte to mark the end of the string(EOS). What this means for Perl programmers is that if you wish to create a cookie with a '\0' byte, the underlying C library will simply truncate the value at the '\0' byte. A cookie with the value '\0' will similarly simply be ignored, as the C library will not detect any content whatsoever. This problem is solved in the libapreq-2.0 library.

RFC 2964-5 are not fully implemented.

Apache(3), Apache::Request(3), CGI::Cookie(3)

   Copyright 2000-2004  The Apache Software Foundation

   Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
   you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
   You may obtain a copy of the License at

       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

   Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
   distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
   WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
   See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
   limitations under the License.